Dad wanted to scare daughter’s boyfriend. It cost him 20 years.
By admin at 21 June, 2009, 6:00 pm
Fathers can relate to this. A Davenport dad wanted to scare his 17-year-old daughter’s boyfriend. So he shot a revolver inside his house. Stupid? Oh, yeah. But here’s the deal. Orville Lee Wollard, 53, of Davenport, is a former Sea World employee with no criminal history. No one was injured. The bullet struck a wall. But when Orville Lee Wollard, 53, rejected a plea deal for five years’ probation, he was found guilty by a jury of aggravated assault with a firearm and now must serve a “mandatory minimum” sentence of 20 years in prison, reports the Lakeland Ledger . The former Sea World employee has no criminal history. “I would expect this in the former Soviet Union or from some banana republic but not from the United
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Dad wanted to scare daughter’s boyfriend. It cost him 20 years.
He doesn’t deserve that much time.
The guy acted recklessly, yes, but 20 years? Sure, that makes total sense. Lock this guy up for 2 decades when he’s obviously not a threat to society but let rapists and pedophiles go after five years. That’s the problem with this broken system.
20 years may sound harsh, but it’s because of how sentences are handed down when a firearm was used in the commission of a felony. He shot at the kid. That’s aggravated assault, which is a felony.
The state tried to give him an out by offering the plea deal, but he didn’t want that because he would have a felony on his record. That meant the case had to go to trial, which meant he would be subject to state law on sentences for felonies involving firearms.
So the bottom line is that he was going to have a felony on his record one way or another. He called the state’s bluff and lost. The guy is an idiot.
And now the boyfriend can go around the house whenever he likes
Usually in cases like this his sentence will get reduced after the dust settles.
But..he has a mandatory. The judge had no discretion. For reasons like this, a mandatory sentences don’t work. We have to trust our Judges, they are educated people who earned the title.
Oh, come on. 20 years is way too much.
And think of all the killers who walk around free as a bird!
I believe Orville Wollard was trying to keep his 16 year old daughter home from running off with her almost 18 year old boyfriend. The boyfriend, persisted in disappearing with her for days at a time ignoring repeated requests and rules set up to keep their daughter safe. I know the family.
Since this had been going on for too long, I think Mr. Wollard was so upset by this time (he had already had 3 surgeries and his wife had a stroke and heart surgery during the same time frame) he had probably gotten to the point where there wasn’t much more he could take. Since the older teenager was arguing with the girl’s mother over the fact that she refused to let the two leave again after barely coming back from an Amber Alert; Orville came out from sleeping in the bedroom and shot a bullet into his own wall. Poor judgement perhaps but with all other attempts he was desparate.
Also in regards to the judge, with all the power and knowledge he has, surely he can JUDGE Wollard – rather than say that he has no choice even though he felt that it was too strict. For example man 1 drops a huge rock on his neighbor, killing him. He gets 20 years. Man 2 drops a pebble on his neighbor’s toe and it bounces off, but because he dropped a rock on the man, he also gets 20 years.